12th March 2009

‘People watching’ they call it. It’s not too rude is it? As long as people don’t notice of course. Traveling on public transport can be stale at the best of times but once you introduce said ‘people watching’ to your journey the boredom soon whittles away. I witnessed a man checking his teeth for bits in the window as he departed the carriage – obviously meeting a lady at the station and a woman chatting about how ‘Janet can’t possibly invite Karly to the wedding because ‘our Kev can’t stand the sight of her after the court case’. You could quite easily write your own soap opera.

This week’s broadcast mostly consists of band competitions, both European and international travel and genuinely authentic cowboy apparel.

This weekend Polly Mackey and her band the Pleasure Principle will be checking and double-checking their luggage is replete with the essentials for their 9 hour flight next week (that’s 4,161 nautical miles) to the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, US of A. Whilst they are there they will be playing 8 gigs and recording 1 TV interview, the record for the most amount of gigs at the festival is 11. Most musicians who play the world renowned festival expect their gigs to be swarming with record industry suits desperate to sign anyone and everyone who plays, alas this isn’t anywhere close to the truth. Most return home without any ink being discharged or contacts exchanged – just empty pockets, sunburn and an undesirable love of Stetson’s.

However, with Polly and the PP its closer to the truth than usual – the festival company themselves have tipped her handsomely. Cary Coldwell, one of the event organisers says:

“I don’t quite know what it is, but the first time I heard Polly Mackey I just thought ‘star in the making’ and she has potential well beyond her years She’s going to be BIG, BIG. Already creating something of a ‘buzz’ this year at the fest, I’m almost looking forward to standing back and watching the industry feeding frenzy when she gets off-stage”.

If that isn’t a good enough tip-off, I’ll eat my ten gallon Stetson.

Keeping at the Tiv, they had their Tivolution Battle of the Bands last Thursday. Wrexham’s Sinner Men were crowned, glorified and scattered with prizes as they took the winning spot. The other hopefuls who won the Blue Peter badges were Dirty Static and I Am Austin, who I am told both created some very healthy competition. As a winner of a competition with so much erm… competition, you’d expect the prizes to be suitably dazzling and noteworthy. Sinner Men have won themselves a slot at the Edge Festival in April, vouchers for the Back Alley Music shop, 5 free guitar lessons (not sure if Kip would need them?) and a support slot with a major act – which will be at The Tiv I presume.

By now Mother of Six should have settled down back to normality following their hedonistic tour of Spanish Catalonia last week. I’ve heard upon the vine of truth that it was quite the eventful flight home and our ambassadors served excellently at all four gigs they played.

I’ve just been introduced to the solo project of Jai O’Sullivan, called ‘The Hashishi – Jai is quite well known on the scene, he used to be the drummer of recently defunct Deeside favourites Part of the Queue. The Hashishi’s groove/trip-hop sound takes on influences from a throng of angles; Massive Attack, Thievery Corporation, Manu Chao, The Doors and Tibetan Buddhism. Sit back in the comfiest of chairs and listen: myspace.com/thehashishi.

It must be that time of the year because the Glyndwr University Student Guild in Wrexham have their Battle of the Bands final tomorrow night. Pitching for the win are Stokoz to Moscow, No Room For Heroes, Small Time Crooks and Bozz. Good luck to all involved, entry is free and doors are 7pm.

Talking of Stokoz to Moscow, they’re doing really well in the ‘Road to V’ competition at the moment. At time of writing they currently sit at 5th in the ‘most popular artists’ chart. Once the competition is closed, the top 10 artists from this chart get to play the Great Escape Festival in Brighton and then from those 10, 1 will be voted to open the V Festival in August. Previous winners include The Young Knives, so as you can see it’s worth a decent effort. It’s all based on a fan voting system, so logon and start your mass voting, here is the direct link to Stokozs’ page: http://tinyurl.com/stokoz.

That brings me to the untimely end of my bit for this week. Do join me next week for some more of the same. If you have any news for me, don’t hesitate to send me an email: ben@wrexhammusic.co.uk. Take care.